Flying Club - flights for free! (Virgin Atlantic Flying Club)

Member Name: JT86

Product:	Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Date:	01/06/08 (465 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free flights and upgrades, free to join

Disadvantages: Can take a while to accumulate miles, reward seats limited

I've been a member of Virgin Flying Club for a good few years, I'd say eight at least. Since I joined I've not paid full price for a flight with Virgin Atlantic.

You don't have to even fly with them now to earn points. Just sign up for a Virgin Atlantic credit card and you'll earn Flying Club miles each time you use the credit card.

Each time you do fly with Virgin Atlantic you'll earn Flying Club miles, the number gained depends on which class you fly and where you fly to.

You can also earn miles with Virgin Atlantic partners, including Dollar Rent a Car and Marriott hotels.

If you're a member of certain other loyalty reward schemes you can swap their points for VA Flying Club miles. These include American Express, Hilton HHonors, BAA, and e-Rewards.

Miles More Friends - recommend a friend to VA Flying Club, and if they fly VA you'll get some free FC miles.

If you want to boost your miles you can now purchase miles too.


Spending miles. This is the fun bit, and were it can get a bit complicated.

There are several different options when it comes to using your miles to pay for flights.

Miles plus money - This is where you use a number of miles for a ticket and also pay a certain amount. This isn't always good value, and I've seen reports of the price actually being more than the cost of a regular ticket, plus your miles on top of that.

Companion ticket - BOGOF! Basically buy one ticket and use your miles for the other one. This is good value, especially if you fly premium economy and manage to get a lower priced ticket.

Upgrades - Buy a ticket in one class and use your miles to upgrade to a higher class.

Buy ticket outright - If you have enough miles in your account you can use them to buy a ticket in any class.

If you have a Virgin Atlantic credit card and spend over a certain amount in a year (I think currently £15,000) you'll receive a free companion ticket that you can use on a VA flight. Same as the companion ticket using miles, but you don't use any miles, just the ticket.

There are numerous restrictions, the main one being there are only a limited number of reward seats made available on each flight, and sometimes there aren't any at all.

If you want to book a reward seat, call Virgin FC as soon as you can. If they don't have any reward seats available, keep calling back. Being flexible on dates helps your chances.

The last couple of times we've been to Orlando I've bought one PE ticket and used my VA credit card companion ticket to get another one free, just paying the applicable taxes.

Overall, it's well worth joining the Flying Club, whether you're a frequent flyer or someone who just flies once every two years. It's free to join and you may even earn enough miles to save money on your next flight.

Summary: Join, it's free and there's nothing to lose!